Seeing scientists criticising this story, so I thought I'd explain why I think it is a great scoop I would happily have published, even though I don't remotely believe that this signal has anything to do with aliens (1/?) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/18/scientists-looking-for-aliens-investigate-radio-beam-from-nearby-star

1) Breakthrough Listen is spending $100m on SETI. You can disagree with that choice, but clearly this is a serious attempt and is worth public scrutiny. If this is the "first serious candidate since the 'Wow! signal'", I want to know about it

2) You can complain about a lack of a paper, but that is down to the researchers, not @iansample. Journalists don't have to wait for something to appear in a pdf before reporting on it

3) That doesn't mean these claims should be breathlessly reported, and indeed they haven't. @lewis_dartnell basically shoots it down, saying there is almost no chance this is an alien signal (I agree).

4) If I was editing this piece, I might have put caveats slightly higher, perhaps "but other researchers doubt an extraterrestrial origin" on the end of the second par, but there is a decent caveat in the fourth par

5) The headline is entirely factual. Scientists are Breakthrough Listen are looking for aliens. They have seen a signal Proxima Centauri, a nearby star. They are investigating it. How else would you word this headline?

6) Finally, there are hundreds upon hundreds of terrible examples of reporting on SETI that overhype claims and mislead readers. This isn't one of them. If you want to see sensible reporting of SETI, this is it. If you don't want to see any reporting of SETI, I can't help you.

For my definitive take on why it is never aliens, see here https://www.newscientist.com/article/2104175-spoiler-alert-why-strange-signals-are-never-really-from-aliens/